Landscape contractors and homeowners often remove grass clippings and/or leaves from their lawns in order to achieve an attractive, healthy, and well-manicured landscape. Clippings are generated with each mowing session, and the volume of clippings may be compounded by infrequent mowing. If the clippings are not removed promptly, they may mat down and prevent light from reaching the underlying grass. As a result, clippings are often collected in a receptacle referred to as a grass “catcher” or “bagger.”
Commercial crews strive to complete lawn maintenance chores in a quick and efficient manner. If the crew must stop a mower frequently to empty the mower's grass bagger, the crew's efficiency and profitability may suffer. Solving this problem with an excessively large grass bagger, however, may adversely affect the mower's maneuverability and performance.
Landscape contractors often use stand-on or sulky mowers, which include an operator platform that is attached to (or, in case of a sulky, towed behind) the mower. Agile stand-on mowers allow turf to be mowed in an efficient, relatively quick manner as compared to some walk-behind and conventional riding mowers.
However, stand-on mowers often lack a bagger and instead distribute the grass clippings back to the ground surface (e.g., via side discharge or mulching modes). If a stand-on mower has any type of bagger, it is typically of relatively small capacity. Moreover, some stand-on mower grass catchers are mounted in a way that is unwieldy and/or difficult to use.
One bagger option for a stand-on mower is a bagger assembly located on the front of the mower frame, e.g., above the cutting deck. However, this type of design may impede the operator's view of the area to be mowed. In addition, a front bagger design may generate dust in the vicinity of the operator. Such front-mounted baggers may also alter mower dynamics as the bagger fills.
Riding mowers may include rear-mounted baggers that extend transversely across the width of the mower, generally behind the operator's seat. However, a rear-mounted bagger on a stand-on mower could be disadvantageous in that it increases the machine's footprint (something that stand-on mowers seek to minimize) and may surround the operator on three sides: the mower's control tower in front of the operator; a duct or conduit extending along one side of the operator; and the rear-mounted bagger behind the operator.